The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method, a recording medium, and a program, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus and method, a recording medium, and a program for increasing the accuracy of retrieved contents in a process of retrieving contents that are best suited to users.
There are available various many contents including television and radio broadcast programs, movies, images such as photographs, music pieces (audio data), and various items of information including cooking, travel, shopping information from sites on the Internet. It is customary for users themselves to retrieve contents that are suited to their preferences from the available contents.
In related art, as a process of retrieving contents that are suited to the preference of a user, there is employed a similar object retrieval apparatus which is supplied with a single retrieval key object (content) as a retrieval key, calculates similarities between the retrieval key object and objects from feature quantities of the retrieval key object and feature quantities of the objects which are stored in a feature quantity storage and management device, sequences those objects whose similarities are higher than a predetermined value in the order of decreasing similarities, and outputs the sequenced objects. For details, reference should be made to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 10-171826.
According to the above conventional process of retrieving contents, only one retrieval key (content) is given as a condition for retrieving contents, and contents that are best suited to a user are retrieved based on the retrieval key.
However, retrieving contents based on the information of only one retrieval key is disadvantageous in that the retrieval key may not fully reflect the user's preference, and contents which do not match the user's preference may possibly be retrieved or presented. Therefore, the accuracy of retrieved contents may not necessarily be high.
If a plurality of retrieval keys are used as conditions for retrieving contents, then they reflect the user's preference more accurately and are effective to increase the accuracy of retrieved contents.